US cops bust Telugu sex racket thriving under ‘cultural cover’

The racket was being run by a producer couple who have connections with the Telugu film industry.

Chandrakala who was the executive producer, is in touch with several popular actors and actresses besides upcoming actors and aspiring producers and directors who want to stage their shows in the US. The couple has earned a name as perfect hosts in US.

The US cops, according to the charge- sheet, have used the letter-heads and stamps of several Telugu associations (around a dozen of them are there now in the US) to invite actresses and some men on short- term visits. For example, it was found that Kishan had sent invitations on a letter-pad of North American Telugu Association (NATA) in January 2017 to get visas for two Tollywood actresses.

After some homework, the cops raided Kishna and Chandrakala’s residence and found more details that established their role in the alleged sex racket. It was found that the couple had collected US$ 2,500 to 5,000 per meeting with a popular Tollywood actress. Interestingly, some male clients who wanted to enjoy a date with these actresses too went to US on fake documents.

In April second week, the US cops detained three Telugu actresses (including one who is also a popular Kannada heroine) for questioning for six hours, before letting them off on submission of bona fide invitations for other valid events. The names of these three actresses were found in the diaries of Kishan and Chandrakala.

The charge-sheet filed by the Chicago police narrated exhaustively the manner of operation of the sex racket by the couple. The cops have recovered several handwritten (in Telugu) diaries with the names of clients and victim actresses. In the couple’s apartment at West Belden Avenue, Belmont Neighborhood, Chicago, the cops also recovered 70 unused condoms.

This couple used an email id—mkishan3456@gmail. com—to contact actresses and clients in India and used his mobile for WhatsApp for booking the slots. The US cops told a Chicago court that the Telugu producer couple used the website, priceline.com, for booking airline tickets and found that they had booked as many as 79 flight tickets between 8 November 2016 and 29 November 2017 to US. This couple used to send the actresses’ photos and details to the clients on WhatsApp numbers and mentioned a specified fee for a date. When the US cops contacted some American Telugu associations on the invitations which were used to bring the actresses to the country, the organisers denied ever having hosted such events.

Tollywood bigwigs, who are already embroiled in a host of controversies off late, are shocked at the busting of this sex racket. They informed the US cops as well as Telugu associations that none of their members was involved in any kind of illegal activities. “We will fully cooperate with the US police in this regard,” Telugu Movie Artists Association president Shivaji Raja told The Sunday Guardian.